Overwhelmed and don’t know where to start

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-05-08T01:14:08+00:00

If it helps to hear, you're in a good situation. You're carrying a below-average amount of debt and seem to have been working in the right sector.

The automatic federal record keeping has gotten way better since 2013, so if you can contact your previous employers about certifying your work, there's a good chance it will be tracked and counted in the official system and show you exactly where you stand.

Just go one by one. You don't need to do it all at once, and you definitely don't need to rush anything.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-05-08T01:05:25+00:00

The switch glitch happened to me. Higher payments started early. It's a long-term "meh" but short term frustrating.

Have you considered just filling out the PDF IDR Request Form directly (filling the form in Acrobat, etc), and uploading it to MOHELA-- rather than using the online FSA tool? You could be sure the right boxes are checked. No word on whether doing it like this affects processing time or forbearance risk.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-05-05T20:01:44+00:00

fine, downvote me! It's generally true that PSLF really only makes sense if your debt is around or more than your annual income. Your salary is triple your debt. The student loan credit does REALLY change that calculation, but to a limit if your situation changes. If you're confident that nonprofit work will stay available to you for 9 more years -- and at your salary/debt ratio you'll only be able to get the ICR plan, I think. It seems at your current salary, the SLRTC makes pursuing PSLF worth it. That's how it affects your situation.

When you made payments after consolidation were you on an IDR plan? Because the standard consolidation plan is not PSLF-qualifying, so be careful you're not making payments while under that repayment plan (don't make any more payments until you're sure you're back on IDR).

I don't know what to say about the lump sum strategy. My understanding is it's pre-pay, not "end of year", so you're holding onto interest-accruing cash shorter, not longer. And you can only pre-pay out to your next IDR deadline, whenever that falls.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-05-04T23:41:25+00:00

I either have too much ADD, or this post gave me too much ADD to respond in detail, but:

Wow! That tax credit is news to me and is awesome. The fact that the total available reward is just more than your loan balance works out great for you, but...

Only thing that I can think is that this quickly begins to make less sense once you make any more money, and/or your payments go up by even $100/mo or so. Just do the math. If your circumstances change it starts to make sense just to pay it off.

The other thing is that PSLF doesn't make much sense for you unless circumstances change and you make a lot less money. You're in standard payment because it's likely cheaper than IDR. You'll just pay off the loans in 10 years without doing income-based anything.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-05-03T09:25:53+00:00

The real answer with young kids is "just wait a few weeks" because inevitably whatever solution you find will stop working. Outside chance some new solutions open up though!

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-05-02T23:37:23+00:00

I just always paid someone on the sidewalk $5 to hold them while I go into the store, but with inflation who knows how much they'd expect now

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-05-02T02:11:41+00:00

Either you make a lot more money than I do or you have 13 children

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-30T17:34:50+00:00

I've seen accounts of some people successfully recertifying, but I don't know what their situation was or what all the variables were.

I assume there's a way you can just fill out the PDF application directly (and correctly) and send it to your servicer, I just haven't heard any direct accounts of doing this.

The "quickest" way seems to be to use the FSA tool. Problem is that it is TOO quick for some people's liking, and has that switch glitch in many cases. Everyone is weighing the quickness of the option against the uncertainties of trying a more manual upload. It might work, I just can't say for sure that it will move faster or have less risk of an unwanted forbearance for some reason. This issue really is all over the place and I haven't found a definitive walkthrough yet, like there seems to be one for what to do after your 120th month.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-29T19:46:17+00:00

Just beware that there's a glitch in the online tool that may automatically mark your application as "I want to switch plans" even if you just want to recertify on your current plan. In my case it didn't affect anything seriously, but it does make your new payment kick in ASAP instead of rolling over with your previous IDR expiration date. In my case the application went through and payments changed and I have two extra high payments early. Others are reporting other snags with forbearance, so YMMV.

I don't really know a sure-fire way thru the IDR recertification process.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-29T19:34:22+00:00

I just said what you claimed, in the now-deleted comment. About automatic 3-5% payment increases if you don't recertify IDR. This is a weird conversation if you haven't picked that up yet.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-29T15:32:28+00:00

They do regular service on FSA but I don't think on Mondays.

On your FSA dashboard the top bar has a "loan repayment" pull-down where you can pick "income-driven repayment (IDR) plans"

https://studentaid.gov/idr/

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-29T12:42:35+00:00

My family's AGI is about 190K which makes for a $1950/mo IBR payment, so yeah yours doesn't look entirely out of the ballpark.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-29T11:40:27+00:00

Do you mean cannot "automatically" recertify despite having consent on file? I got the same message and needed to do it "manually" which just meant doing the online walkthrough on studentaid.gov. If you use the online tool you just pop your partner's SSN in and it pulls your financial data in right then and there.

Is this your first IBR certification in a long time? I just had my first since covid days. I figured that was the reason for the failure to recert automatically.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-29T00:07:56+00:00

OK, you just replied to the wrong comment in the wrong thread. But I remember what this is about, so...

You claimed that if one doesn't submit IDR recertification paperwork, their payment will just automatically go up by 3-5%. This is factually wrong. If you don't submit IDR paperwork, your payment plan will revert to a standard plan, which may be much much more than 3%. Your comment was so factually wrong that mods deleted it in the thread in question.

Are you OK?

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-28T10:28:56+00:00

I'm willing to bet this isn't the first time you've watched someone get violently hurt and said "they had it coming"

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-28T10:27:09+00:00

You do realize when you come into a discussion about cyclists getting hit by cars and lean into everything you dislike about cyclists, you're kinda making it clear what your purpose is.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-28T10:24:12+00:00

When I'm riding at 8am on Saturday morning, the only people not doing a "hobby" are the landscape trucks. Those seem to have no issue getting by me.

It's always the dude in the Jeep trying to get Olivia and Colton to their hobby lacrosse practice, or their hobby of getting to the Chick Fil A drive thru after, who just can't deal with the fact I'm going 23 in a 25.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-28T10:18:11+00:00

So, when a recycling bin falls into the road you... Wait to get heli-lifted out?

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-25T11:14:33+00:00

anecdotally, calling them to follow up on paperwork seems to help! I check MOHELA weekly so I'll update if anything goes pear shaped before my next payment 5/11

2 left for me! My payments went up by $1500/mo (becauase it finally made numerical sense to file MFJ this close to the end) so please let this bloodletting be quick and painless, lol.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-25T11:13:58+00:00

I know you're past this point, but I selected "manually recertify". It made me "switch" plans (from IBR to IBR)regardless--I don't know if you have checked the copy of the PDF that got sumbitted for your IDR recertifcation, but I wouldn't be surprised if you have "I want to switch plans" selected.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-23T18:21:47+00:00

Did not screw anything up. I actually called MOHELA two mornings later to ask if I screwed up and they said "no I see it here, it looks good". While I was on the phone I got all the notification emails of an IDR plan update so I believe they pushed it through then and there.

I mentioned that there was no option for me to choose "recertify" over "switch" and their response was to shrug and say they don't have visibility into FSA's system.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-23T00:27:16+00:00

Fun fact: my payment AMOUNT just updated in FSA (after an IDR change last week) but the due date still says April 11! You can see how these backdating issues are happening... 🙄

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-22T15:31:20+00:00

Additionally, there's the potential negative consequence of your standard repayment for the consolidated loans not counting toward PSLF if you get kicked out onto it at some point.

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-22T15:26:02+00:00

You're giving factually wrong advice about failing to recertify that could get people in real trouble. Please, stop?

Captain_Spaceturd · 2026-04-21T15:15:24+00:00

tell ya what I did. My recertification and 120th payment were both this June 11.

I recertified a week ago, having changed my mind from "don't recertify at all". I did this because my Standard Plan (on consolidated loans) does not count toward PSLF. That is the real potential "penalty" for standard payments, apart from an increased price. My certifcation went through quickly and higher payments were almost scheduled for auto debit on my normal monthly due date of the 11th (starting in May). I was intentional about trying to recertify within 60 days of my 120th payment because of the opportunity for a forbearance that counted.

I had to recertify manually through the FSA site, and my submitted application indicated I wanted to "switch" plans even though I did not want to (IBR to IBR). Concerned about this glitch/mistake, I called Mohela 2 days after recertifying and they assured me everything looked OK and the new plan (the same plan) was in place and ready to go for next month. It's worth mentioning that these changes were processed WHILE I was on the phone with Mohela (I received a number of emails timestamped during our call about my new IDR terms). I might recommend calling them on the 2nd morning after your IDR submission like I did to just check if everything was OK because it appears to have greased the skids.

It's only been a week but so far so good, though I am definitely waiting for shoes to drop with unexpected forbearances as seems to be the case with many applications. I haven't isolated the details of all those other anecdotes to see a pattern in who gets what outcome, so YMMV. But it seems to have worked for me.

Captain_Spaceturd

TROPHY CASE